Posted!

Join the Conversation

Comments

Welcome to our new and improved comments, which are for subscribers only.
This is a test to see whether we can improve the experience for you.
You do not need a Facebook profile to participate.

You will need to register before adding a comment.
Typed comments will be lost if you are not logged in.

Please be polite.
It's OK to disagree with someone's ideas, but personal attacks, insults, threats, hate speech, advocating violence and other violations can result in a ban.
If you see comments in violation of our community guidelines, please report them.

Ask John: How do I deal with people's compassion failures?

Dear John: I am a 33-year-old woman who deeply believes in the value of serving and caring for others.

Unfortunately, a lot of the young adults I know, even Christians I have come across, are simply not that loving or compassionate. They don’t seem to understand what it takes to truly put others before themselves, like Jesus commanded.

It’s not just my “Christian” friends who do not truly possess servants' hearts. A lot of the pastors I come across also fail to feel deeply enough, or to respond sympathetically enough, to the suffering and pain of others. They find it all too easy simply to look the other way, to ignore “the least of these.”

More and more I find this general lack of love and compassion in others incredibly isolating. How would you deal with this?

Answer: The first thing I would do is start looking for different people to hang out with. By my estimation, there are approximately one googabazillion people alive in the world today who regularly evince so much love and compassion they make me look like a hungover Darth Vader. I would find out where some of those lovebirds of a feather flock together, and arrive at their next gathering bearing suet cookies and a sack of black oil sunflower seeds. (#WhenGoodMetaphorsGoBad.)

Seriously: I would think of a cause in which I believe and then go join with the people and organizations in my community who are already working to advance that cause. People who are giving over some or all of their lives to bettering the lives of others are not typically lacking in love or compassion.

I would also, by the way, stop expecting Christians to be any more loving and compassionate than anyone else, knowing, as I do, that the ratio of heroes to zeroes is the same amongst Christians as it is amongst any other group. I would remind myself that knowing someone is Christian tells you literally nothing about the quality of their character.

Mostly, though, I would remember that it’s impossible for me to know how much love and compassion is in anyone’s heart but my own.

I would think of a person who strikes me as lacking in love and compassion and realize that I don’t know that person’s life. I don’t know their pain. I don’t know their fears, challenges, victories, defeats. I don’t know what they’ve lost, what they’ve sacrificed, how they’ve been sacrificed themselves.

I also don’t know in what ways, nor to whom in their lives, they might regularly show enough love and compassion to satisfy even me. One of the grumpiest, most short-tempered men I’ve ever known works as a full-time volunteer running the massive food bank and pantry he started many years ago. The guy’s ornerier than a wet cat. (#ClicheTouche)

Unless you and your family need food, that is. Then he’s a saint.

You just never know what you don’t know about someone. So it’s best to refrain from judging anyone.

Besides, how does judging others bring more love and compassion into the world? The way to get more people to show more love is to love people more.

And that includes you. It’s possible that you want people to start showing more love and compassion to others. But my guess is that what you really want is for people to start showing more of those qualities to you. If I’m wrong about that, forgive me. If I’m right about that, then please, at every level, forgive yourself. Extend to yourself all of your love and compassion and then watch as your whole world becomes a more loving and compassionate place.

Send questions to askjohnshore@gmail.com, or through John's website, JohnShore.com. Questions may be edited for brevity, clarity, or to ensure anonymity.